History of the English Language Unit 5 - Early Modern English PDF

History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.1 Historical background modern english: 1500-1800 1476 arrival of the printing press in england...

History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.1 Historical background modern english: 1500-1800 1476 arrival of the printing press in england 1776 independence of the american colonies Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25 Problems, problems, problems… In the 16th century, English faced 3 problems: 1. Recognition 2. Orthography 3. Lexical enrichment 1. Recognition Latin (and less so Greek) were the languages of the academy, medicine, and law English had to win recognition in the fields where the two languages (esp. Latin) had been predominant for many centuries Vulgar languages seen as immature, not as apt as ancient languages for the expression of certain concepts 1. Recognition "I do not think that anie language, … is better able to utter all arguments, either with more pith, or greater planesse, than our English tung is.” english is just as good as latin and greek, as able to express. this goes against the opinion of the time (Richard Mulcaster) 2. Orthography Controversial subject in the 16th century No generally accepted system that everybody could follow No longer phonetic and no fixed rules: Mismatch between sound and spelling increased when some spelling conventions became fixed by usage, while the pronunciation changed (GVS) great vowel shift had been going on for a while, it’s finalised in this period 2. Orthography Additional variation caused by the insertion of letters in the spelling of words where they were not pronounced, due to their presence in the corresponding Latin word like debt, from lating debitus Very frequently, authors and printers followed their own “conventions” 3. Lexical enrichment With the progressive demise of Latin, a large number of Latin words are borrowed into English Some caught on Some passed out of usage relatively quickly Factors Printing Colonial press expansion Religious reform Cultural Spread of activity popular Faster education Social communica- mobility tion 9 Factors Printing Introduced to Britain in 1476 by William Caxton press + By 1500, over 35,000 had been printed (many, in Latin) ed. But books in English sold better! Printing press + Increased access to education = Impact on literacy 15th century: little literacy beyond church and commerce By late 17th century: around half of the population were literate Although there were differences by geographical location, gender, and class … and uniformity of language (esp. in spelling) 12 Factors Religious Act of Supremacy in 1534 reform Henry VIII (and his successors) are the supreme head of the Church of England Ties with the Catholic Church and the Pope are severed The vernacular (English) has to be the language of the church → Religious texts are no longer in Latin By 1539, every church in England had an English translation of the Bible new worlds, bible translation to english, spread of the bible so spread of language and the religious mission 13  contact with other cultures and languages Colonial Factors —> borrowings from those languages, especially for things they did not have expansion The British Empire keeps expanding during this period + faster (new colonies in present-day North America, Jamaica, India, Africa, and Australia) comm. including the More and more rapid means of communication → commerce, printing press transportation, and technology increase → English lexicon grows accordingly → local varieties of English grow ways of making local texts non-local Internal colonialism too: Ireland and Scotland 15 Factors Social In the ME period, social classes were pretty stable mobility Now, people can more easily ascend unlike in the past, when being born poor meant you would probably die poor. in ME People are more educated and literate period, there is a possibility to socially ascend The Protestant reform has brought about shifts in power and wealth Early stages of industrialization (1700-onwards) Many choose to adopt linguistic conventions of the people they want to be associated with speak like rich people. very spread practice so a big change as people born poor were speaking like rich people 16 Factors Cultural Cultural activity flourished in English activity First company of actors, live performances Building of theaters William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney… Publication of the King James Bible (1611) the potential of english for prose 17 Change of thought Renaissance Rationalism th 14-16 c 17-18th c 18 Rationalism Strong sense of order Importance is given to regulation and logic Individualism and independence become less important than during the Renaissance so the linguistic variation of english doesn’t System and regularity are now important align with the ideas of the moment. standardisation is necessary Rationalism Correctness becomes crucial …and it needs to be defined and regularised it = correctness Some push for a standard that is logical, that everybody agrees on, and that everybody accepts There is a wish to stabilize the language in a state of “perfection” (without impurities) Dictionary as a tool for this needed standard, letting go of the chaos So many new words are entering the language, we need to keep track of them! The Elementarie (1582; Mulcaster) 8,000 words, with no definitions A Dictionary of the English Language (Johnson; 1755) Overview of the English lexicon (40,000 entries) Fixed spelling unprecedented Became a reference Dictionary he excluded technical terms in order to exclude borrowings, keep words that were strictly english. purity of english in order to standardise it and stabilise the words that were more commonly used “The chief intent of it is to preserve the purity and ascertain the meaning of the English idiom; and this seems to require nothing more than that our language be considered so far as it is our own; that the words and phrases used in the general intercourse of life, or found in the works of those whom we commonly stile polite writers, be selected, without including the terms of particular professions, since, with the arts to which they relate, they are generally derived from other nations.” (Johnson, 1747) Academy the people pushing for this were the ones that wanted the standard The EME is full of discussions regarding the “decline” of the English language, and the drop in linguistic standards of “the good old days” they want pure english, without borrowings, but that’s impossible because english is a result of borrowings. celtic would be the closes thing to that, but it’s not english. in terms of power and pride, the EME period is that moment, so it makes no sense to want what they had in the past. English never had a formal English language academy (even though some really, really wanted one) Academy a lot of conscious discussion of language at this time, especially with this idea of variation “My LORD; I do here in the Name of all the Learned and Polite Persons of the Nation, complain to your LORDSHIP, as First Minister, that our Language is extremely imperfect; that its daily Improvements are by no means in proportion to its daily Corruptions; and the Pretenders to polish and refine it, have chiefly multiplied Abuses and Absurdities; and, that in many Instances, it offends against every Part of Grammar.” (Swift, 1712) Grammars 1760 onwards: scholars try to do with grammar what Johnson had done with the English vocabulary Goal: define ‘proper’ linguistic behaviour and provide fixed rules to: Prevent further “decay” Ascertain, refine and fix usage Codify the principles and reduce the language to rules Settle disputed points Point out common errors Prescriptive grammar 17th-18th c criteria Logic Etymology Classical languages Grammars Different from – different than Between you and I - Between you and me More perfecter You were – You was… He did not ask for no favours Results of the work of grammarians Codification of the grammar (many rules still valid today) Disputes settled, some uncertainty eliminated No need for academy Weak points They contributed to strengthen the difference between written and spoken language They often disregarded real usage They failed to see that language is always changing and often redundant/illogical Too many rules: sometimes contradictory or unnecessary  History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.2 Language: A bird’s-eye-view Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25 ModE characteristics: Overview English was pretty close by the beginning of EModE to PDE Sure, there was still some variability, esp. 1500-1700 Some big stuff is going to happen in the EModE period …but in the short vowels, consonants, morphology, and syntax, not a lot of excitement is to be had ModE characteristics: Overview Early ModE period (1500-1650): A conscious interest in the English language English was still more flexible than PDE Some features of language were not yet fixed Late ModE period (1650-onwards): the rise of prescriptive grammars and grammarians 32 ModE characteristics: Overview The lexicon changed considerably, reflecting the vast changes going on in society, the arts, science, and religion during this time Inflectional endings for case and conjugations had disappeared almost completely by the start of the EModE period. New grammatical features are added, such as the use of the auxiliary verb do for negative statements and questions The second person singular pronouns (thou / thee / thy / thine) dropped out of use Possessive pronoun its was added, replacing the old genitive form his  History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.3 Language: Spelling and phonology Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25 Spelling Between the 15th and 17th century, spelling gradually became regularized arrival of the printing press, regularising forces like the dictionary… After the mid 17th century, spelling is largely the same as PDE Spelling the The thorn is still sometimes used, esp. in the abbreviation y e, but it is indistinguishable from …it even shows up in the King James Bible (17th century) It progressively disappeared and switched to th Spelling predictable use but not used like they are now The letters and were interchangeable for a while: is used at the start and middle of words, with often used at the end and are also interchangeable: at the beginning of words and elsewhere same as ME period “vsual”, “iustice” Spelling stylistic convention, it did nothing to pronunciation The long “s” () came into use at the beginning or middle of words and the small was used at the very end of a word (e.g. sinfulness was written ſinfulneſs) Due to its similarity to , was lost by the 19th century Spelling Spelling became fairly fixed during this period with the increasing popularity of the printing press Latin had its influence on the spelling of some words of French and Latin origin, further separating spelling from phonetic origins: ME iland was influenced by the Latin insula, via French resulting on ModE island ME dette (from Latin debitum via French) added the current , debt, but it was never pronounced  Spelling Nouns were often capitalized regardless of whether they were common or proper nouns Not used in english anymore but yes in languages like german Spelling New punctuation symbols were added: The comma replaced the virgule or slash / as a sign of pause The apostrophe ‘ came into use for the possessive and for replaced letters in contractions Consonants: New phonemes Two new phonemes entered the language: /ʒ/: genre, pleasure…French loanwords /ŋ/: sing Prior: the combination was pronounced as two separate sounds ([ŋg]) the final g was lost so it becomes a phoneme on its own [ŋ] was not a phoneme, but an allophone of the /n/ phoneme occurring before a velar Consonants In most cases, the reduction of onset clusters pursued the road already taken in ME: The /h/ sound was no longer pronounced except when preceding a vowel most times removed from spelling as well more like word final position The post-vocalic allophones of /h/ (i.e., [χ] and [ç]; sight) disappeared or became /f/, as in cough  IMPORTANT FOR TEST: words given and how pronunciation has changed Consonants mostly retained in spelling Some sounds became silent in certain positions: but not pronounced /l/ after low back vowels preceding consonants: talk, half, almond, folk (but not after other vowels: felt, kilt) /t/ and /d/ in combination with /s/: castle, hasten /g/ and /k/ before /n/: gnat, knight starten in the ME period /w/ before /r/ word initially: write, wrong Consonants /d/ became /ð/ when it followed primary stress and preceded /r/ (e.g., father, gather, slither) spelling reflects this change, so written th This change did not affect French loanwords (modern) …or comparatives (wider) Consonants In Early ModE the “r” was still pronounced in all positions The loss of /r/ at the end of a syllable (/far/ -/fa:/) began in certain dialects in the late ME period but concluded mid- ModE The non-rhotic varieties of English spread to part of the United States (New England and the South, and as a result to African-American Vernacular English), as well as to British colonies in Australia and South Africa Consonants [j] developed before some unstressed V in word-medial position when following primary stress ME: [ˈtɛnər] vs. ModE: [ˈtɛnjər] If the preceding consonant was /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, this [j] fused with the C to produce a fricative or affricate (/ʃ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/) gradual, creature, pressure Consonants By 1800, the inventory of consonants was the same as in PDE …sure, some variants existed, but they do too in PDE in some social and regional varieties Vowels ME: unstressed V started to be reduced. This goes on in the ModE period Unstressed in final syllables was only pronounced in certain plurals (after sibilants: boxes, judges…), in possessives (also after sibilants: Ross’s, fox’s…), in past tense and past participle regular verbs ending in “-t” and “-d”: shouted, granted…) Final –e was no longer pronounced at all by early ModE, but was retained in the spelling Vowels The vowel system that was inherited from ME, globally speaking, was quite different from that of PDE OE (even during ME): vowels contrasted in quantity (i.e., many monophthongs occurred in pairs of long and short members) The lengthenings/shortenings created by ME sound changes persisted, (e.g. keep - kept, child-children, holy - holiday, wise - wisdom, wild – wilderness) Vowels: Great Vowel Shift One of the defining linguistic events of the early ModE period is the completion of the Great Vowel Shift (GVS) The GVS affected long vowels and started in the ME period or earlier The change was not fully completed until later ModE To this day, there are dialects in Great Britain that have not fully implemented the shift The reasons behind the GVS are not entirely known Vowels: Great Vowel Shift What happened in broad terms: All long vowels shifted up …or if there was no place higher up to go, the monophthong shifted to a diphthong Pull-chain (or push-chain) mechanism filling gaps left by changes by moving everything, domino effect A gap was created in the phonological system of the long vowels and other sounds moved into these positions BITE HOUSE /bi:tə/ i: u: /hu:s/ FLEECE e: o: BOOT /fle:s/ /bo:t/ SEA ɛ: ɔ: GOAT /sɛ:/ /gɔ:t/ MAKEN /ma:kən/a: 22 BITE HOUSE i: u: əɪ əu S1 e: əɪ əu o: ɛ: ɔ: a: 24 FLEECE BOOT i: u: e: o: S2 MAKEN /mɛ:k/ ɛ: æ: /mæ:kən/ a: /ma:kən/ S3 i: u: əɪ əu ɛ: ɔ: 27 SEA GOAT e: o: ɛ: ɔ: S4  SEA i: e: Merger created new homophones: Sea/See, Pee/Pea… S5 MAKEN /me:k/ e: /mɛ:k/ ɛ: æ: /mæ:kən/ a: /ma:kən/ S3 S6 BITE HOUSE i: u: əɪ əu aɪ au S7 i: u: e: o: aɪ au Vowels: Great Vowel Shift Not all varieties implemented these changes (esp. diphthongs) …and in many varieties, monophthongs diphthongized later on!  GOAT o: əʊ ɔ: After 1800! S4  GOAT o: ou ɔ: After 1800! S4  MAKEN /me:k/ eɪ /meɪk/ e: ɛ: After 1800! æ: a: S3 S6 Vowels: Great Vowel Shift And of course, some exceptions applied: (ME: /ɛ:/) should have ended up /i:/ e.g., reason, sea, beat But not always! e.g., swear, bear, great, break, dead, head other representation of the stages Phonetics and Phonology ME word ME pronunciation ModE word and pronunciation mys /mi:s/ mice /maɪs/ gees /ge:s/ geese /gi:s/ mous /mu:s/ mouse /məus/ → /maus/ goos /go:s/ goose /gu:s/ broke /brɔ:kə/ broke /bro:k/ → /brouk/ or /brəʊk/ name /na:mə/ Name /næ:m/ → /nɛ:m/ → /ne:m/ → /neɪm/ Vowels EModE vowels Spelling Example IPA father /ɑ:/ , place, maid /æ:/, /ɛ:/, /e:/ → /eɪ/ , law, caught /ɔ:/ man /æ/ bed /ɛ/ , be, meet /i:/ hear /i:/ Vowels EModE vowels Spelling Example IPA this /ɪ/ I /əɪ/, /aɪ/ oft /ɒ/ , throne, oar /o/ , do, you /u:/ but /ʊ/ Homework What vowel did these words start with prior to the GVS? How did they evolve due to the GVS? mouse moose beet bite rake Homework The vowels child and children sound oh so very different. Why? Tell the whole story (and yes, the story begins in the ME period). Your question Read (present) vs. read (past) PDE read = OE rǣdan (strong, class 7) Present tense OE rǣdan > ME read (/ɛ:/) Your question Past tense OE rǣdan = 1st OE past rēd BUT: if vowel had remained long, GVS should have still applied, and the two should have merged! Your question Past tense OE rǣdan = 1st OE past rēd Verbs like rǣdan and lǣdan (V-final dental) had a history of strong + weak conjugations: rēdde, lēdde PROBABLY! Pre-cluster shortening in ME period redde, ledde Your question Past tense The weird thing is why read didn’t get re-spelled to red (like lead-led, bleed-bled, meet-met) …probably to differentiate the V from the high-frequency word red?  History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.4 Language: Lexicon Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25  so it may have been tricky to keep track of the lexical growth, especially for those with little education. so Lexicon they needed ways to record all of this dicoveries, travel, technology, inventions… Period of colonialism and growth in all fields → Unprecedented lexical growth in this period OED: around 4,500 new words were recorded in English during each decade between 1500 and 1700 Two-thirds of these words: creations based on already existing roots and affixes One-third: borrowings 20,000 borrowings adopted for permanent use over these 2 centuries (compared to 7,500 from the ME period) english had borrowed a lot in ME but only 7500 remained, in ModE 20000 remained  one of the ways to record all this and help Lexicon especially those who were not very literate A Table Alphabeticall (1604): A Table Alphabeticall, containing and teaching the true writing, and vnderſtanding of hard uſual Engliſh words, borrowed from the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French, &c. (…) gathered for the benefit and help of ladies, gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons. Whereby that they may speak more eaſily and fluently, have a better vnderſtanding of many hard Engliſh words, which they ſhall hear or read in Scripture, Sermons, or elſe where, and alſo be made able to vſe at the same aptitude themſelues. Lexicon The borrowing of so many words created conflict Some rejected the trend: “I am of this opinion that our tung should be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borrowing of other tunges…” Some people considered learned words pedantic and obscure and (‘inkhorn terms’) Inkhorn term: any foreign borrowing into English deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious, usually from Latin which would make things uncesseraily complicated Lexicon: Borrowing went further than ever, stayed there —> related to this faster exposed to discoveries that had no words in communication in unprecedented numbers english because they did not exist in their culture Increases in Easier travel / Contact with literacy → need for Colonialism → speakers of other learned vocabulary new concepts, languages → to satisfy all the needs discoveries borrowings Great expansion of the English lexicon 16 Lexicon: Borrowing Increases in Easier travel / Contact with literacy → need for Colonialism → speakers of other learned vocabulary new concepts, languages → discoveries borrowings Great expansion of the English lexicon creation of poetry and theatre. borrowings and creation of words to fit the metric Literary innovations by great authors, playwrights and poets of the day Translation of books (easier to introduce a new word for an unfamiliar notion than to coin an English equivalent) The History of the World (trans. by Skelton) → 800 Latin-origin borrowings 17  Lexicon: Borrowing Increases in Easier travel / Contact with literacy → need for Colonialism → speakers of other learned vocabulary new concepts, languages → discoveries borrowings Great expansion of the English lexicon Borrowings from Greek and Latin (especially in written format) Exclusive, imitate, insidious (Latin), chaos, dogma, economy, ecstasy (Greek) French still a donor language (in law and government, courtly culture) but less so than in the ME period 18 but not everything caugh on and stayed, not really know why but let’s remember that there was resistance to the borrowings Lexicon: Borrowing Increases in Easier travel / Contact with literacy → need for Colonialism → speakers of other learned vocabulary new concepts, languages → discoveries borrowings Great expansion of the English lexicon More Latin-French doublets (camera-chamber, paralysis-palsy) 20 Lexicon: Borrowing Increases in Easier travel / Contact with literacy → need for Colonialism → speakers of other learned vocabulary new concepts, languages → discoveries borrowings Great expansion of the English lexicon International trade and exploration (plants, animals, new objects) 21 Lexicon: Borrowing Increases in Easier travel / Contact with literacy → need for Colonialism → speakers of other learned vocabulary new concepts, languages → discoveries borrowings Great expansion of the English lexicon Spanish and Portuguese (Colonial expansion in Latin America) spanish was not always source language, breeze, mustang, rodeo, buckaroo, lasso sometimes it was the intermediary because it had borrowed from other languages first a But also Arabic (giraffe, sheikh), Dutch (cookie, skate, spook), Italian (balcony, opera, studio) 22 Lexicon: Borrowing Increases in Easier travel / Contact with literacy → need for Colonialism → speakers of other learned vocabulary new concepts, languages → discoveries borrowings Great expansion of the English lexicon Jungle, shampoo, thug, cheetah (Hindi) colonialism Zombie, safari (Kiswahili) 23 Lexicon: Morphological processes None of these processes were new. They were employed extensively during this period: Derivation add affixes (pre or suffix) Compounding two or more words are put together and become one Back-formation looks like derivation but actually the long word is the original, and a new word is formed through the removal of an affix (taser to tase) Clipping shortening (can happen in different places of the word) Eponyms when something is named after a person Initialism use the first letter of all the words that make up a concept Morphological processes: Derivation Increasing use of Latin (and Greek) prefixes and suffixes: circum- , dis-, re-, pre-, mal-, inter- etc. / -ate, -ise, etc. Often attached to Latin (and Greek) roots: telegraph, epitomise, prefabricate Morphological processes: Derivation Zero-derivation: the same spelling used for different word categories without having to add an affix With loss of morphology, any word can be used as a different word category. This favors the derivation of nouns to verbs, and of verbs to nouns call, book… english is very productive with Noun → verb: to shoulder, to back = for noun this, but not in spanish for Verb → noun: a back-up = for verb, adj example. they need affixes to change category Stress shift: english loss of class-specific morphology during the ME period makes it very easy to transfer classes Con‘vict → ‘Convict a sort of sub-type of zero derviation. no affixes added but there is a change in ‘Torment → Tor‘ment pronunciation because of a change in stress Morphological processes: Derivation Back formation: which has affixes but is the original form A simpler form created from an apparently complex form, sometimes by analogy Editor → to edit editor gave edit, not the other way around. so -or was removed to form another word Babysitter → to babysit very hard to recognise because it’s hard to tell which one came first so it can be mistaken for normal derivation Morphological processes: Compounding Two words are put together (often in a transparent way) in terms of meaning, so the word intially means the combination of the two words, and these two words are clear in the form of the word. but with thime these two things can become less transparent Then changes happen to compounds that make them more opaque Lord: OE loaf + ward Woman: OE wif + mon Railway, chronometer, highlight these are easier to recognise as compounds. evident two words, meaning can be inferred if you know the meaning of the two separate words Morphological processes: Clipping Popular phenomenon in the 18th c. and onwards Back clipping: bicycle → bike Front clipping: telephone → phone common than the non-clipped words these clippings have become even more Both sides: influenza → flu Whole phrases: to go at Canterbury pace →to go at canter you don’t remove an affix perse because that would be back formation. you just chop part of the word Morphological processes: Eponyms Sandwich, boycott, sherry, watt, platonic, panic, atlas formed after people, places… proper nouns often these eponyms don’t get recognised as eponyms anymore Morphological processes: Initialisms AM, PM, USA, RIP different from acronyms because acronyms are pronounced as a word (NASA) but initialisms are pronounced letter by letter as if they were being spelled  History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.5 Language: Morphology Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25 Grammatical changes In EModE there are no great grammatical changes Important changes in inflectional endings had already taken place in the ME period Grammatical changes: Highlights Continuation of the regularizing tendencies in nouns and verbs seen in the ME period Social use of the 2nd person pl pronoun in singular address New neuter possessive pronoun: ‘its’ Different use of prepositions: ‘What think you on it?’ Nouns ME nouns are like nouns in PDE for the most part Two cases: Common Genitive / Possessive (Genitive ‘s was consistent after 1700) The same plurals existed: -s (only productive process nowadays) Ablaut man/men -n Invariant forms fish, sheep -i cacti, fungi, octupi, stimuli 5 Pronouns The only significant change to the 1st person pronouns was the disappearance of “ich” in favour of “I” ithrough used to be i: but became ai GVS “I” had been capitalized in some texts as early as 1250 but was only regularly capitalized during the early ME period The 2nd person forms did not change at all, except in spelling and pronunciation, though significant changes were taking place with regards to their pragmatic use eventually, the 2nd person plural forms take over the singular ones Initially it was a mark of formality or politeness …until the singular forms fall out of use Pronouns didn’t have it before As for the 3rd person pronouns, hit was lost in favour of it in the nominative and oblique cases and his changed into its in the neuter possessive case Since ME, English no longer had grammatical gender distinctions but natural gender neuter forms are reduced in number Since the possessive case was generally created by adding “-s”, the form “its” was created by analogy because it’s added to the genitive In the 3rd person plural, the major change was the loss of the pronouns beginning with in favour of the forms borrowed from Scandinavian Pronouns As in ME, pronouns had three cases: nominative, possessive and oblique ModE personal pronouns Num. Case 1st 2nd 3rd only ones we don’t use anymore Masc. Neut. Fem. Sg Nom. I thou he it she Pos. my, mine thy, thine his its her Obl. me thee him it her Pl Nom. we ye they Pos. our your their Obl. us you them  thou used at the beginning of the modern period, but by the Pronouns end of it it’s already archaic. progressive fading 2nd person pronouns: As early as the 13th c., the 2nd person plural forms (ye/your/you) had also been used to address individuals as well as more than one person despite being technically the plural form Usage influenced by French and to denote respect to strangers and people of higher social standing The singular forms (thou/thy/thine/thee) were used for familiar and intimate situations Eventually, the thou forms came to have a more negative, condescending connotation, and by the late 1600s, they were used less and less commonly in favour of you forms in all situations Today, thou forms are strictly used in certain religious contexts (prayers and ceremonies) and a few set phrases (holier than thou) Verbs ModE Strong Verb Conjugation: ‘to sing’ Infinitive: to sing Past pple: sung ME used -ing Present participle: singing and -ende, by Imperative: sing ModE only -ing Indicative Subjunctive Present Preterite Present inf Preterite ind pret I sing I sang thou sing(e)st thou sangest singular sing singular sang he sings (singeth) he sang quite divided by dialect (eth was southern) plural sing plural sang plural sing plural sang Verbs ModE Weak Verb Conjugation: ‘to love’ Infinitive: to love Past pple: loved Present participle: loving Imperative: love Indicative Subjunctive Present Preterite Present Preterite I love I loved thou lov(e)st thou lovedst singular love singular loved he loves (loveth) he loved plural love plural loved plural love plural loved Verbs ModE Verb Conjugation: ‘to have’ Infinitive: to have Past pple: had Present participle: having Imperative: have Indicative Subjunctive Present Preterite Present Preterite I have I had thou hast thou hadst singular have singular had he has (hath) he had plural have plural had plural have plural had  Alternation: Shakespeare used wert Verbs whereas in the King James Bible wast was ModE Verb Conjugation: ‘to be’ used. Infinitive: to be Past pple: been Present participle: being Imperative: be Indicative Subjunctive Present Preterite Present Preterite I am I was thou art thou wert/wast singular be singular were he is he was plural are plural were plural be plural were Verbs With the loss of “thou”, the 2nd person sg in the present tense died out as well the inflection wasn’t lost, the pronoun was (inflection is secondary) Northern variant Late 17th c: the 3rd person sg ending –(e)s finally won out over the former -(e)th eventhough -eth was more popular and used Southern variant The 3rd person sg –s inflection becomes the only verb inflection in the present tense probably because the s ending does not usually add an additional syllable, but eth does Verbs Verbs also lost the unique subjunctive inflections The bare infinitive is used as a subjunctive form (formal requests, present and past unreal conditions): He asked that she leave now She requested that she be here on time The subjunctive is rarely used in PDE, except in formulaic expressions (God save the queen) or very formal requests Verbs A major change was from the single word infinitive (OE singan, ME singen) to the periphrastic infinitive with to + the verb root: to sing The bare infinitive form is still used with modal verbs, verbs of perception and some verbs of permission and causation (see, make, let...) The ending for the present participle became -ing, winning out over the former -end(e) forms The 1st person singular and all plural forms lost inflectional endings entirely Adjectives The adjective lost all its inflectional endings by the early ModE period The periphrastic use of “more” and “most” for the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives of more than two syllables became fully established but rules were relatively relaxed at first: We often find counter examples in the literature: eminenter, beautifullest, more near, most foul. Double comparatives and superlatives were still common: the most unkindest cut (from Shakespeare) Articles No changes except the spelling change from the thorn in the definite article to a new spelling with  History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.6 Language: Syntax Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25 The possessive construction ME saw growth in the periphrastic possessive construction “The wheels of the car” early ME inflected genitive with ‘s but then for a while this epriphrastic construction started to take over By ModE, the periphrastic and genitive constructions become more defined: both are maintained and coexist but they are not used indistinctively, rules are established for when to use which ’s genitive is increasingly restricted to human and animate possessors exclusively 20 The impersonal construction Impersonal constructions remain, but they are quickly disappearing And therfore me semeth beste to holde my peace, least I shoulde do as the knyght of the toure dyd (Fitzherbert, 1534) Growth of expletive it and there 21 Word order ModE inherits from ME the strong tendency towards SVO However, it also exhibits alternative word order patterns: As we his subjects have in wonder found (Shakespeare, 1599) I can thee thanke that thou canst such answeres deuise (Udall, 1533) Orders alternative to SVO will cease to be possible in the 17th century (but passive, topicalization) 22 Periphrastic do In PDE, do is used as a main verb, as an emphatic particle, or an auxiliary The PDE uses were only stabilized after Shakespeare’s time Until after 1700, positive declarative sentences without emphasis with do weere in free variation with their do-less counterparts Seamen do call 23 Negation In the ModE period, negatives could be formed with and without do I doubt it not If it were, it not belongs to you I do not doubt you By 1700, the standard becomes post-auxiliary negation 24 Negation Double negatives (common in Chaucer’s works) is not allowed prescriptively, based on mathematics and logic 25 Questions Questions could be formed by subject-verb inversion or by subject-auxiliary inversion: Came he not home tonight? Do you not love me? What sayde he? What do you see? After the 17th c., do-support will be standardized for questions 26  History of the English Language Unit 5. Early Modern English 5.6 Language: Syntax Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25 The possessive construction ME saw growth in the periphrastic possessive construction “The wheels of the car” By ModE, the periphrastic and genitive constructions become more defined: ’s genitive is increasingly restricted to human and animate possessors exclusively 2 Word order ModE inherits from ME the strong tendency towards SVO However, it also exhibits alternative word order patterns: As we his subjects have in wonder found (Shakespeare, 1599) I can thee thanke that thou canst such answeres deuise (Udall, 1533) Orders alternative to SVO will cease to be possible in the 17th century (but passive, topicalization) 3 The impersonal construction Impersonal constructions remain, but they are quickly disappearing And therfore me semeth beste to holde my peace, least I shoulde do as the knyght of the toure dyd (Fitzherbert, 1534) Growth of expletive it and there 4 The impersonal construction There were some set phrases that encoded impersonal constructions: methings, methought, meseems Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower (Shakespeare, 1597) These constructions survived longer that other impersonal constructions (potentially, they were re-interpreted as adverbs) 5 Periphrastic do In PDE, do is used as a main verb, as an emphatic particle, or an auxiliary for negatives and questions The PDE uses were only stabilized after Shakespeare’s time Until after 1700, positive declarative sentences without emphasis with do were in free variation with their do-less counterparts Seamen do call the DO is not emphatic, it adds nothing 6 Negation In the ModE period, negatives could be formed with and without do I doubt it not postverbal negation without DO If it were, it not belongs to you preverbal negation wihout DO I do not doubt you which we retain in PDE By 1700, the standard becomes post-auxiliary negation lexicographers and grammarians regulated this 7 Negation Double negatives (common in Chaucer’s works) are no longer allowed prescriptively, based on mathematics and logic rationalist movement during the time, logic and rationality rule everything, even language. but artificial rule, many languages use double negatives still and they are perfectly understood 8 Questions Questions could be formed by subject-verb inversion or by subject-auxiliary inversion: Came he not home tonight? inversion without do Do you not love me? What sayde he? inversion without do What do you see? After the 17th c., do-support will be standardized for questions 9 Verbal periphrases Two main differences between ModE and PDE: 1) Time reference I have delivered it an hour since (Shakespeare, 1601) You spoke not with her since? (Shakespeare, 1608) The PDE rules that distinguish the present perfect from the preterit uses became established only in the early 18th century if a specific time is mention, in PDE we would usually use present simple. in ModE this distinction was there 10 Verbal periphrases Two main differences between ModE and PDE: 2) Have vs. be both can be aux but now there’s a clearer differentiation in usages change of movement, state… Transitive verbs and non-mutative intransitives take have Mutative verbs take both be and have, but be remains much more common I have seen vs. I am gone some languages still use this diferenciation 12 Verbal periphrases Two main differences between ModE and PDE: 2) Have vs. be Be will only be taken over by have with mutative verbs in the 19th c. (though we still have some relics) They are come. She is gone. The sun is risen. He is arrived. The guests are departed. 14 Present continuous In ME: cases of be + preposition in/on + -ing were common phonological reduction In ModE, there are some cases of be + a + -ing: I kill’d the man that was a-hanging thee (Shakespeare, 1608) not very used but sometimes in songs or poems to increase syllables 15  the frequency of pres cont more than tripled Present continuous in the ModE period with respect to ME The present continuous starts to more reliably indicate continuous aspect or limited duration That done, I will be walking on the works (Shakespeare, 1603) …and it also is used to indicate futurity (We are leaving tomorrow) …and shows up with always (He is always yelling) to show annoyance over a habit 16 Gerund Gerundive clauses with and without a subject emerged in the ME period, but become more frequent in the ModE period: John resents my / me working in a bar Accepting the job was a good idea 18 Test 2: True or false example TRUE OR FALSE? For each statement, decide if it is TRUE or FALSE. Justify your answer either way. Note that simply saying TRUE or FALSE, without further justification, will not give you any points. 1) The words lofe and loſe would have sounded the same in the ME period. FALSE, stands for /s/ and stands for /f/ 2) The vowel /i/ in wisdom was shortened during the ME period, but not the /i/ in wise. TRUE because wisdom is shortened because of a pre-consonant cluster, which wise doesn’t have 22 Test 2: Short answer question 1. Why do we pronounce the and in words like nature or procedure /tʃ/, and /dʒ/) with affricate sounds? [j] developed before some unstressed V in word-medial position when following primary stress ME: [tɛnər] vs. ModE: [tɛnjər] If the preceding consonant was /s/, /z/, /t/, /d/, this [j] fused with the C to produce a fricative or affricate (/ʃ/, /tʃ/, and /dʒ/) 23 Your questions What are doublets? the same original root gets borrowed from two different languages, in English usually borrowed from french and latin. chamber (fr) and camera (lt), but chamber actually comes from camera. 24  History of the English Language In EModE there are no great grammatical changes Important changes in inflectional endings had already taken place in the ME period Course recap Prof. Adriana Soto-Corominas Fall 2024-25 Your question Your question Whatever happened to the past subjunctive? In PDE, this is the same…. In OE and ME past subjunctive is used in the hypothetical subordinate If I earned a lot of money, I would buy a nice car. clause (or which otherwise is subject to doubt) that conditions the ModE Weak Verb Conjugation: ‘to love’ reality or realizability of the main clause: Infinitive: to love Past pple: loved …But Present participle: loving Imperative: love Indicative Subjunctive If I earned a lot of money, I would buy a nice car. Present Preterite Present Preterite I love I loved thou lov(e)st thou lovedst singular love singular loved he loves (loveth) he loved plura love plural loved plural love plural loved l 14 15 Your question Your question The only* verb that past subjunctive is expressed overtly is verb to be The only verb that past subjunctive is expressed overtly is verb to be ModE Verb Conjugation: ‘to be’ Infinitive: to be Past pple: been If I WERE you, I’d do it. Present participle: being Imperative: be Indicative Subjunctive Present Preterite Present Preterite I am I was And even then, there is an increasing tendency of: If I was you… thou art thou wert/wast singular be singular were he is he was plural are plural were plural be plural were 16 17 Phonology and spelling OE: Vowels contrasted in terms of quantity Vowel length is actually constrastive (is vs īs) No silent consonants! /f/ and /v/, /s/ and /z/, /θ/ and /ð/ are NOT separate phonemes Spelling: Thorn, eth, wynn, ash 26 Phonology ME: Prevalent sound reduction Conditioned vowel shortening and lengthening (clusters, trysillabic words) [y] → [ɪ] / [y:] → [i] [æ] → [ɑ] Phonologization of voiced fricatives: [v, ð, z] → /v, ð, z/ Some other minor consonantal development The yogh keeps disappearing in detriment of , , 27 Phonology ModE: GVS!!!!! /ʒ/ and /ŋ/ become phonemes Some consonantal deletions helped shape English into its current form: /l/ after low back vowels preceding consonants /t/ and /d/ in combination with /s/ /g/ and /k/ before /n/ /w/ before /r/ word initially /h/ sound (except when preceding a vowel) [j] developed before some unstressed V in word-medial position 28 Spelling ModE: Disappearance of thorn Appearance and disappearance of thorn and long s Capitalization of nouns vs. vs. Apostrophe and comma become convention 29 Lexicon OE: Very little borrowing, really Some from Latin Some from Old Norse Very few from Celtic 30 Lexicon ME: Compounding stops being a highly productive resource for English Vocabulary growths through intense borrowing from French (but also Latin and Norse)… including affixes and pronouns! Some words from OE disappear (lexical loss), some change meanings (semantic shift) 31 Lexicon ModE: Unprecedented lexical growth in this period Many words were created internally (compounding, derivation, eponyms, etc.) Many were borrowed (and remain): Latin French Spanish Portuguese Hindi…. Inkhorn terms: not everything that was borrowed was needed! 32 Morphology OE: Grammatical gender Highly inflected morphology Strong and weak N, A, V Pronouns show case (N, A, D, G), number (sg, dual, pl), and person 33 Morphology ME: Tendency: leveling of inflections + weakening of endings Grammatical gender is lost Of all the articles, only þe, þæt, þis survive The only N inflections that survive are plural and genitive Pronouns still show nominative, object, and genitive case, as well as number and person Adjectives have lost most of their inflections, with the exception of -e 34 Morphology ModE: More regularization of paradigms Interesting changes in pronouns (ich and thou are lost) 3rd person sg –s wins over –eth The subjunctive loses its distinctiveness 35 Syntax OE: Even though there were two main word orders (SOV and SVO), word order in the OE period was the most free… undoubtedly because morphology helped SOV preferred esp. for subordinate clauses 36 Syntax ME: SVO becomes the unmarked order We still see SOV order with light objects VSO for interrogatives (like in ME) Double negation still a thing (like in ME) Expletives start filling in the empty subject position 37 Syntax ModE: SVO is the unmarked order but we still see some alternative orders at the early stages of ModE The possessive construction shows variability but that gets settled towards the later part of ModE Some impersonal constructions but they seem to be pretty formulaic Do shows up variably in negatives and questions (but also in affirmatives without emphasis)… things will get settled in late ModE 38